


Burning Bright

by nomelon



Category: Fast and the Furious Series, The Fast and the Furious (2001)
Genre: Adrenaline, Best Friends, Fire, First Kiss, First Time, M/M, Muscles, honestly not a surfer, oh what feeling is this, poor risk assessment skills
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-09
Updated: 2013-08-09
Packaged: 2017-12-22 22:33:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/918792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nomelon/pseuds/nomelon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's lost track of the number of times Dom has saved his life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Burning Bright

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dreamlittleyo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamlittleyo/gifts).



> Beta: the marvellous khaleesian. Thank you so much for taking this on for me. (I was totally thinking about Hobbs: And above all else we don't ever, ever let them get into cars. Maybe next time!)
> 
> Dedication: this was started a loonnng time ago, then abandoned, then picked up again for dreamlittleyo who prompted me with Brian/Dom, firefight. If you don't remember even prompting me for it, I wouldn't be surprised! You know I move at nothing but a snail's pace, but I live in hope, as always, that you enjoy the outcome.
> 
> A/N: Any and all disbelief about smoke inhalation or the effects of high speed impact on the human body after leaping from great heights, I invite you to suspend it forthwith, and direct you to the handwave approach of the movies in all their ridiculous glory.

Strong hands on his shoulders yank him out of sleep. Brian bolts upright in bed, adrenaline drenching his system. He chokes as he sucks in a lungful of air thick with smoke.

"Brian! Brian, you with me?"

Dom's face is half-covered with something tied over his nose and mouth. Brian nods rapidly, his eyes already blurring with tears. He barely has time to register the relief in Dom's eyes before Dom drags him out of bed and throws a pair of sneakers at him.

"We're on fire?" Brian asks, unable to take it in, shoving his feet into the sneakers.

"It's downstairs," Dom confirms. "Kitchen and half of the ground floor are gone already.”

Brian swears. Their place is little more than a rented shack by the ocean, dry wood and red tile, isolated for privacy, and cheap as hell. Perhaps too cheap to have the little things like decent wiring.

Dom grabs Brian's car keys from the little bedside table and shoves them in his pocket. Brian can't help but appreciate his priorities. 

"Gotta move, Brian. You ready?"

Brian nods, grabbing his pillow and yanking off the pillowcase, tying it over his mouth and nose.

He's lost track of the number of times Dom has saved his life. Once upon a time he kept a tally in his head, a neat little list of all the times they'd gone to the wall for each other, but there have been too many close calls, too many crazy times, and somewhere along the way, he lost count. If he still had the check-list of who's saved who in his head, tonight would be a big plus one in Dom's column. There's no ten car pileup, no hail of bullets, no bad guys looking for revenge or cops looking to take them down. Instead there's a house fire in the middle of the night. After everything they've been through, it just doesn't seem right somehow.

They make it to the top of the wooden staircase. The house is sauna-hot and Brian's throat is burning like he just chain-smoked a pack of Marlboro Reds. There's a loud crack from somewhere beneath them, the jolt carrying through the floorboards. Then an awful, gut-wrenching sound like the house letting out a wail of pain. The floor shifts beneath them, and Brian can't breathe, can't think, can't react as Dom shoves him half a room away. Most of the floor disappears, a wall of fire and burning timber separating them.

Brian screams Dom's name, two, three times, until the smoke robs him of his voice. He hates himself, but he can't walk through the fire and he can't see anything that looks like Dom. He's wasting time. He has to get out, skirt the building, and come at it from the other side, see if Dom somehow made it downstairs, or maybe find a way to climb up into the little bathroom if he has to. He goes to the side window and sees the battered old pick-up parked outside. He backs up a little and crosses himself before he realises what he's doing -- definitely too much time spent with Dom -- holds his breath, and leaps. He hits the roof of the pick-up, bounces off, and lands on his side in the dirt. A starburst of pain from his shoulder to his hip robs him of his sight, and there's a long, horrible moment where he can't get any air into his lungs, a hanging limbo before he finally manages to suck in a breath. 

He rolls onto his back, coughing and gasping. He pulls the pillowcase from his face and tries to take it slow, tries to let his body get used to breathing normally again. It's a struggle to get to his feet, but he drags himself up and sets off in a stumbling run to the other side of the house. There's no way in that he can see; a blaze at every window. There's no way for him to fight the fire, no phone to call anyone for help, not that he thinks they'd arrive in time. He stands outside, staring up at the burning building, his fists clenched at his sides, feeling small and useless, and he yells Dom's name, looking desperately for any signs of life at any of the windows. There's nothing: only smoke and fire, the house being eaten up from the inside. He swipes at his eyes, tears streaming down his face, and he thinks of nothing, does nothing, just waits for Dom to appear.

He stands there for a long time, his mind a blank, his face hot from standing too close to the flames. The sound of somebody coughing makes him go still, listening with his whole body, praying he didn't imagine it, that he's not just hearing what he wants to in the hiss of the fire. Another cough, and Brian starts running. He rounds the corner and sees Dom's boots sticking out from behind the overgrown beargrass.

He skids to a stop in the sand and drops to his knees. Dom is sitting in the dirt, soaking wet and cradling his bad arm, the arm he injured a lifetime ago, to his chest, but otherwise he looks amazingly, miraculously whole. Brian doesn't trust his eyes, doesn't trust Dom not to be hiding something more serious from him. He runs his hands all over Dom, checking for injuries -- "Just a bruise, Brian. A big fuckin' bruise, but I'm okay." Brian doesn't believe him. He needs to make sure that what he's seeing is real, needs to know that Dom didn't do something so stupid as to throw his life away like that just to get Brian out of the house.

"You stupid son of a bitch," Brian hears himself saying, the words tumbling off his tongue. "I didn't-- I couldn't-- You don't _do_ that. You don't get to do that. I thought you were _dead_."

Dom's face is half in shadow, but Brian can still make it out when he arches an eyebrow. "You're welcome," he says, his voice even rougher than usual.

Brian doesn't know whether to laugh or cry or throw everything he has into a punch to Dom's jaw. For a long, awful moment, he teeters on the edge of doing all three. He's freefalling, no safety net, when he leans in and presses his mouth to Dom's. 

For a moment it's not even a kiss. Brian just breathes him in, teeth on Dom's lip, and he's shaking, he's fucking shaking because Dom is an asshole, which Brian knew already, but jesus christ the thought of losing him, losing him like this, it's too much. Brian knows there's adrenaline and maybe shock driving him -- which he thought generally he had a better handle on -- but he doesn't even care. Dom tastes like smoke and sweat, but sweet too, incongruous, like faded chewing gum. Underneath it all, his mouth is warm and wet and amazing, because somewhere along the way Brian started kissing, drinking him down like cool water on a hot day. Dom hasn't pushed him away yet, the tight grip he has on Brian's arms probably the only thing still holding Brian up. Brian crawls forward on his knees, needing to get closer, to feel Dom alive and breathing underneath him. He crawls right into Dom's lap, his hands on Dom's face, making embarrassing sounds that he can't control.

"Brian," Dom is saying. "Brian, hey. It's okay. Ease up." 

Brian shakes his head. "No. Thought you were--"

Dom pushes him back just enough to give him room to talk, gentle but firm. "Take a breath. I'm okay. We're okay."

Brian nods, shaky. He sits back and thinks, _fuck. What the fuck did I just do?_

Behind them, the house is still crackling and roaring, white noise broken only by one of the windows bursting, then the sound of shards of glass hitting the ground. Brian flinches, his nerves a little fried, and maybe he's too used to things exploding around them, but whatever debris is falling from the house, they're too far out for it to reach them. 

Dom reaches out to him, then seems to think better of it and runs his hand over his head instead. Brian's eyes widen in surprise when he sees that Dom's hands are trembling. Dom looks up at him and catches the look. "I got you out. We're okay."

Brian nods, because he did, and they are. "I just kissed you, man," he says, sounding dumb and feeling dumber.

"Yeah, I noticed." There's a smirk hiding in there somewhere, and Brian figures at least he's not going to get punched.

"You want to put that down to shock and write it off?"

Dom shifts his weight forward a little and Brian figures that's it, that's all she wrote. They'll get to their feet, dust themselves down, get in their cars and drive, because that's what they do. Maybe Dom will let it slide, or maybe Brian's just fucked up with his best friend, crossed the line and gone too far for it ever to be written off. But Dom's hands are on his hips, and he's lifting, drawing Brian closer, seating him snug in Dom's lap, and... shit. 

It's not just Brian that's into it. 

Dom gives a tiny shake of his head. It's all the answer Brian needs, and something breaks free inside of him. He kisses Dom with everything he has, open and wet and a little frantic. The best part, the craziest part of this whole fucking night, is that this time Dom gets with the programme and kisses him back, all that strength holding him close. It's Dom's hand fisted in the back of Brian's hair that grounds him, that lets him take it down a notch from desperate. It's Dom's teeth scraping his chin, biting his throat that makes Brian's breath catch, that makes him jerk his hips and go looking for more. He hooks two fingers on the waist of Dom's jeans, damp denim and hot skin over hard muscle, and gives a little tug. 

"You want?"

Dom glances down, and when he looks up Brian's expecting hesitation, or maybe a full-on smirk, but instead Dom is wearing a faint little frown, like he's taking the question way more seriously than Brian had intended, like he's weighing and measuring Brian, seeing him in a whole new light, and he likes what he sees.

"Yeah," he says. "I want."

It isn't easy as Dom's jeans are wet, but he leans back to help shove them down, and that's a trip, seeing Dom laid out underneath him, hard and wanting, struggling to get out of his clothes and keep his hands on Brian at the same time. Brian kicks out of his sweatpants, and gets pulled back into Dom's lap, in close and personal, skin on skin, Dom's jeans pushed down around his thighs giving Brian room to work. Heat licks over his bare skin, his thigh, the small of his back, sweat prickling on the back of his neck and trickling down over his ribs. There's grit under his knees, and that's kind of a bitch, so he pulls off his shirt, uses it like a cushion and gets most of his weight on one knee. Dom watches him do it, then pulls off his shirt too, balls it up and shoves it under Brian's other knee. Brian's seen Dom shirtless plenty of times before, but this is different, this time he gets to touch. The firelight flickers over Dom, reflecting on damp skin, dips and curves of solid muscle, making something hot and achy unfurl low in Brian's stomach.

This time it's Dom who pulls him into a kiss. It's Dom who groans when Brian licks his palm and takes them both in his hand, rolling his hips into it. It's messy and sweaty and every life-affirming cliche in the book, and so fucking _good_. Brian knows he's completely screwed because right now, right in this moment, he'd offer up anything Dom wanted, no take-backs, no regrets.

Dom loses it first, and that's just about the hottest thing Brian has ever witnessed, seeing his face crumple like he's in pain, his whole body tense and shaking, maybe the most out of control Brian's ever seen him. It doesn't take much for Brian to follow him down: Dom's big hands, the way he moves Brian exactly where he wants him, his dark eyes never leaving Brian's face. 

They're a mess. Brian's covered in sweat and dirt and come, he's not entirely sure where his sweatpants went, and all his other clothes just went up in smoke, but he can't bring himself to care.

"You okay, Brian?"

"Yeah, man. I'm good." He feels hollowed out, like his whole world just got flipped upside down. He's still wrapped around Dom, boneless, not wanting to let go, not wanting this moment to end because what comes next... he has no clue, and that's a little terrifying. He wonders if it's normal to feel shocked to your core and mellow as fuck at the same time. "Dude, I think I'm in love with you."

This time he can _hear_ Dom's smile, and it's one of the big, shit-eating ones. "I meant are you hurt, but okay."

"You're an asshole."

Dom huffs out a laugh. He tugs a strand of Brian's hair, getting him to shift over so they can lie side by side. Brian pulls on his shirt first, grimacing a little and thinking maybe as soon as he can feel his legs again he'll walk down to the beach and go for a little dip on the ocean.

The stars overhead are bright. The Big Dipper is right above them. Brian's eyes follow the edge of the bowl to find the North Star, just like he's done ever since he was a kid. Occasional trails of smoke from the house drift past, but other than that he's got a clear view.

"How did you get out?"

Dom gestures vaguely towards the house. "Turns out having about a million towels wasn't such a bad idea after all, O'Conner. I wrapped myself up like a mummy and took a bath. Then I jumped."

"But the window in there was... Jesus. Through the _wall_?"

"Through the wall. C'mon, this place was made of matchsticks. No big deal. You?"

"Jumped for the pickup and bounced off. It hurt like hell."

"Such a badass."

"You know it." Brian lifts his head and watches the house burn. "The house is toast," he says, because apparently stating the obvious a lot is the name of the game this evening. "Everything we owned was in there."

Dom lifts his head and looks over Brian's chest to where they park their cars, a little turning circle sheltered from the road by more of the ever-present beargrass. The fire hasn't spread further than the house and hasn't come anywhere close to their cars. He grunts and lowers his head. 

"Not everything," he says, closing his eyes, the backs of his fingers brushing Brian's bare hip. "Don't sweat it. We've got everything we need."

Brian thinks about the friends they have scattered down through South America and across half of Europe. He thinks about safety deposit boxes containing top-of-the-line fake IDs and bank accounts stuffed with more money than he knows how to spend. He thinks about living life a quarter mile at a time, going to the wall over and over again for the people you love, handing over the keys because it's what your gut and your heart tell you to do, and never regretting a single second of any of it.

He turns his head to watch Dom's profile and thinks, _yeah. Yeah, maybe we do._

**Author's Note:**

> http://nomelon.dreamwidth.org/220940.html


End file.
